


Of Oaths

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Characters - Well-handled emotions, Drama, First Age, Plot - I reread often, Writing - Engaging style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 12:18:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4221455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The former herald of Maedhros grieves for his lord. Slash, mostly implied.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Oaths

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

Time and place: somewhere in Middle Earth after the War of Wrath, some hours after the  
death of Maedhros. Maglor is making for the coast, to seal the fate of the  
third Silmaril, and a last handful of followers are trailing him.

********

_Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou_  
shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: But I  
say onto you, Swear not at all. (Matthew 5.33-34) 

***

I would stay with you for a  
while, but they say there is little sense in lingering, and I must go with  
them. They will not listen when I say that I can still feel your presence here,  
that I can hear the cry of anguish and despair you never uttered as you fell.

I would again lay my hands on  
the rock where you last stood. I would look once more into the abyss, into the  
fire that swallowed your body, your Oath and your cursed treasure, and wish for  
the courage to follow you.

But they say we must move on.  
Your brother yet lives and lives in torment, they say, and our concern must be  
with him now, the last of the House of Fëanor. We shall go wherever he leads us  
– where else is there for us to go? -- though I think it will be long ere any  
of us dare speak to him.

When he rose and set off this  
morning without a word, his poor scorched hand still grasping the last of those  
thrice-cursed gems, I caught a glimpse of his face. And just when I thought all  
feeling but grief had died in me, I felt a surge of anger, keen and searing,  
and aimed straight at you – and yet gone as quickly as it had come. Smothered  
by that grey fog inside my head; it clouds my thoughts and darkens every corner  
of my mind.

They believe I have lost my  
grip on reason, but they should fear for your brother instead. At least I have  
tears. He has none.

No one seems to mind that I  
kept your cloak. I know not what became of your sword, nor who took the rest of  
your meager possessions, and I care less. I keep your cloak underneath my own  
as I pick my way through this landscape of ruin and desolation. Clutching it to  
my chest in a tight bundle, jealously shielding it from the wind. Perhaps that  
way your scent will linger a bit longer. And every now and then I bury my face  
into its soft folds, and bite my lips until they bleed, to stifle the howls of  
despair wanting to break from my throat.

Gone! My beautiful generous  
lord, my king, my bright star! Leader and friend you were to me, ever just and  
kind, and ever beyond reach. Always in the midst of us, and ever alone.

Tell me, did any of us touch the  
core of your heart, back in happier times when Himring stood sturdy and strong,  
when we all still knew where Evil lay? Was there anyone who was granted leave  
to dwell within that guarded stronghold, your heart, and take delight in your  
love?

Not I. Not any of us, I  
believe, much as some might have wished for it. For rest assured, I was not the  
only one to desire your love, to crave your sole affection. How is it I would  
hear of this? Come, surely you realized what you were -- a legend living and  
walking and breathing among us. Ah, the tales and the rumors, the idle talk of  
drear winter nights, in the hours when watch-fires and cressets burned low, and  
dusk was as long gone as dawn was yet to come --

There was one you loved, people  
said.

I know; I saw you and him  
together. I watched you, on those rare times he came to visit. Odd, how well I  
recall my bitter resentment of your cousin, and how little it matters now. I  
can now admit that you loved him more than your brothers, even more than the  
lord Maglor. More than the mother you left behind in the Blessed Realm in  
another age, and perhaps even more than your long-dead father, of whom few now  
speak and many despair.

And why should you not have  
loved Fingon best, Fingon the valiant who sought and found and freed you, who  
alone was willing to stake his life for your rescue? Your true steadfast  
cousin, late High King of the Noldor, his voice so fair when raised in song,  
and his grey eyes a mirror image of your own. Eyes that had seen the Light of  
the Trees, and still shone with it.

Was it your childhood you saw  
in his those eyes, your lost youth? The gardens of Valinor, the tall peaks of  
the Pelόri, the white splendor of Tirion? Was it memories of how peace  
crumbled bit by bit and dissent shook the House of Finwё, and of how the  
Great Darkness came?

Yet you hardly had need of  
Fingon Fingolfin’s son to recall the glory and grief of Aman. There were others  
who remembered, your brothers foremost among them.

No, what I think you saw was  
Thangorodrim, the flash of a sword, the bloody ransom paid for your  
deliverance. His arms cradling your gaunt tortured body, and his tears falling  
on your chest. After Thangorodrim, you were bound to him and he to you, a bond  
that none and naught could sunder.

I did not see this, back in the  
days when I thought I hated your cousin. 

But just once I would have had  
you look at me the way you looked at him. Or grant me the peculiar smile you  
had for him alone, so full of joy and tenderness and deepest trust.

Ah, when you smiled-- the corners  
of your eyes fanning into crinkles, the sudden gleam of teeth, your mouth the  
true shape of a drawn bow –

In the early years of Himring,  
ere the Nirnaeth Arnoediad and the death of Fingon, when your oath had not yet  
consumed your spirit and bent your shoulders and rendered you full grim and  
weary, you smiled often, and your laughter rang out through the Hall. Your eyes  
blazed hot and bright, and defiance of death seemed in every step you took.  
None dared pity you for the loss of your hand. And many looked upon you with  
awe and love when you passed by in your swift stride, tall and lean and  
straight as a candle-flame, your head held so high and proud, your braid  
swaying and your cloak billowing in the wind.

There goes Russandol, people  
said fondly (if softly, for who save your close kin would have dared call you  
by that name to your face?) and _Russandol  
is come home, _they called laughing when you were sighted returning from the  
hunt _, light the torches and cooking_  
fires, deck the Hall and welcome back your lord!

More graceful your walk seemed  
than the dance of others. Never gave a song more sweetness to me than your  
voice when you spoke, nor any blanket greater warmth. No burnished copper  
vessel, no chestnut fresh from its hull could match your hair for shade and  
sheen, and the hue of your eyes was ever-changing, the grey of beech bark, of  
snow-clouds in midwinter, of slate in the rain.

Wisdom you had as well as wit,  
and kindness was not the least of your virtues. Yet you would not suffer fools,  
and your tongue could be sharper than a dagger off the whetstone, your words as  
caustic as quicklime. Sloth and disorder irked you sorely. And strange indeed,  
in light of your poise and persistence in all matters of great weight, how  
impatient you oft waxed over trifles. A garment not laid out, a bootlace torn,  
your horse not brought forth in time, an answer too long in coming, and anon  
two steep lines creased your brow, and your fingers tapped out an edgy beat on  
whatever surface availed.

“Yea indeed,” my father was wont to say with a smile of affection,  
“he is Fёanor’s son after all. And mark how he chews the knuckle of his  
thumb when brooding, and how those long legs of his are never quite at  
rest.”

I would shrug my shoulders and  
keep my gaze glued to your face, desiring but the means and license to erase  
all care and distress from it. What was Fёanor to me? A shadow of the  
past, a vaguely hovering threat that still held sway over your life and bound  
you with the ghostly shackles of an oath.

“I cannot love the memory of  
Fёanor,” I once said. “Too much ill fate and evil did he bring into the  
lives of his people and his sons.”   
Though the lords Celegorm and Curufin, I added silently, had ever needed  
little aid from anyone to fill their lives with wickedness.

“Judge not what your feeble  
head fails to grasp, and think twice ere you lay the blame at the feet of  
Curufinwё Fёanáro alone,” said my stern father, who in times past  
had stood at the forge with Finwё’s eldest. “You knew him not. He was the  
greatest of us, the most learned and fair and gifted, the bright star of the  
Noldor.”

No greater or fairer than my  
lord Maedhros, I thought stubbornly, for I had yet to understand the curse of  
greatness.

Many a time I saw you take up  
your sword, spin and swerve and strike in battle both mock and true, and lithe  
and fell was your dance. I have seen you deliver death, and even then my heart  
ached not with compassion, but for the grace and beauty of your movements. I cringe  
with shame, thinking about it now. Your beauty I shall never deny, but I have  
since learned pity, and the cries of the kin we slew will sound in my ears  
forever.

For we did grievous wrong.  
Blood taints my hands, as it taints the hands of all who came with your father,  
of all who chose to abide by you or your brothers. It fouls our swords and  
shields, our clothes, our thoughts and hopes and sleep. But blame you for my  
sins I will not. You commanded not my allegiance; I gave it to you of my own  
free will. You forced me not to your side; I stood by you because I desired no  
other place in life. My guilt was not yours to bear. And though your foes were  
certain to become mine, your Oath meant naught to me. I swore my own long ago.

To follow and serve none but you,  
by means of life or death, without qualm or question.

Once I made to swear it before  
you, to call upon the Valar whom I had never seen and upon Ilúvatar whose face  
is hidden to all, and you nearly struck me. Now harsh cruel ire was never your  
wont and your kindness to me was boundless. But that moment I feared you,  
though it was the first and last time ever. 

I was still in my early youth  
the day I so eagerly sought to impress you. Few were yet astir on that pale  
summer morning and all was quiet, and dew was upon the grass, for at this hour  
the wind slept. The hills were green and fair, and the air cool and sweet upon  
my brow. And when I came upon you sitting alone by the Outer Wall, and you  
beckoned to me, my heart well nigh burst with gladness.

There we sat together for a  
while, and you told me of the hunt from which you had returned but the night  
before, and of times past in the West, when the princes of the Noldor rode in  
the woods of the Guarded Realm with Oromë himself. Of shining Nahar and the sound  
of the Valaróma you spoke, and of the mighty trees and fragrant flowers of  
those forests. And perhaps the wonder and longing showed in my face, for you  
broke off and said: “Poor child, how readily I forget that you have never known  
aught but this fortress and barren hills, and the threat of war.”

But I said: “My lord, not for  
all the secret treasures of the Naugrim would I dwell in another place or  
choose a different life. My home is here.”

“A fine answer,” you said with  
a smile, “and a loyal one, I fear. Himring is abode to many and dear to few.  
But if you choose to claim it home, so be it. Mind though that it may not  
always stand, and that it shall see strife and death in its time, as surely as  
night follows day. Cruel blows the wind from the plains of Lothlann, and more  
cruel yet is the evil that lurks to the North, ever biding its time for  
assault.”

And I said, with all the brashness of the fledgling unacquainted  
with the hawk, “Let it come!”

Then you laughed and said:  
“Come it shall. Though when and in what guise I cannot say. Nor whether we can  
hold out for long; the full strength of Himring has yet to be tried. And some  
who are with me now might fall away tomorrow.”

“But I shall not,” I said. And  
swiftly bringing out the knife you had once given me, I bloodied my palm, and  
launched into my oath. But the name of Ilúvatar had scarce left my lips when  
you sprang up. Tall and wrathful you loomed, your eyes wide and aflame with a  
piercing light, and I shrank against the wall in dread as the words yet unsaid  
withered in my throat.

“Hush, you little fool,” you  
said, “would you willingly ask for torment and condemnation? Swear not!”

And seeming eager to be gone  
you swept up your cloak from the ground, but then you wavered and knelt by my  
side once again, drawing me close, and for all too fleeting a moment my head  
rested against your chest, and your hand upon my hair.

“Go and have the cut bound,”  
you said as you walked away. ”And henceforth be not so keen to maim yourself.  
There are those of us who would envy you the convenience of a spare hand.”

I knew your anger had passed,  
and indeed the corners of your mouth twitched as you spoke. But I remember it  
was some time that I stayed by the wall, stunned and bewildered, and weeping a  
little.

I laugh now, surfacing from the  
depths of the past, and end with a sob. Heads turn, but no words are spoken.  
And I walk on.

The thin scar still graces my  
palm, faded witness to a memory that carries sweetness now rather than gall.  
Yet even then your rebuke seemed a petty price to pay for your embrace. I felt  
your heart beat that day.

********

Some  
notes, probably more than you wanted to know 

I wanted to write a lament for Maedhros.   
So many things go awry in his life. And when he dies, no one mourns  
him.  Well, there’s Maglor, but the way  
I see it, he’s too far gone at this point to grieve much for his brother.  
Perhaps because he understands Maedhros really had no choice. And Maglor has  
too many issues of his own, which might cloud the main point here.

So Maglor was out as a narrator for now. But who else was ‘there’? What got me  
thinking was this line, telling of the two brothers refusing the summons of  
Eönwe:

_And they sent a message therefore to_  
Eönwe, bidding him yield up now those jewels which of old Fёanor their  
father made and Morgoth stole from him. 

Would  
Maedhros have trusted just anyone with this? I don’t think so. Which tells me  
the brothers must have had some surviving followers with them to the very  
end.

The  
messenger, then. Someone who’s known Maedhros long enough to have grown very  
fond of him, but without ever having been close enough to him to be of real  
importance. And I started thinking of Himring and those 450 years or so that it  
stood, and what life must have been like there. Besides the valiant warriors of  
the March, there must have been a number of women and at least a small crop of  
children. So my narrator became one of those children. I also mused how young  
elves would have viewed those among their elders who had come from Aman – and  
especially their lord Maedhros, who was not only the eldest of Fёanor’s  
brood, a grandson of Finwё, and a former candidate for the title of High  
King of the Noldor, but also a strapping warrior and charismatic leader who had  
survived torture few would dare to imagine, and overcome a pretty devastating  
disability. And had come out of it a decent kind of guy. Oh, and never mind that  
he wasn’t exactly hard on the eyes, either. Quite the contrary.

About  
Thangorodrim: the rescue of Maedhros must have been a bedtime favorite with the  
young Elves of Himring.

And  
while Maedhros wasn’t called a King in the Silmarillion, his people might have  
perceived him as such.


End file.
